A sinner long possest by sin,
By Satan’s power together bow’d,
Is utter impotence within,
Nor can lift up his heart to God,
Carnal his unregenerate mind,
Perverse his will, to evil prone,
His soul is all to earth inclined:
And such alas, I find my own!
A sinner long possessed by sin
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years &c.’—[Luke 13,] v. 11.” This hymn appears in the 1766 manuscript “MS Luke.” This manuscript is part of the collection of the Methodist Archive and Research Centre in The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester (accession number MA 1977/575, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 11 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 218.
Publishing: Public Domain